Winter Holiday Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury until Saturday 18th February Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness-on-Windermere, March 4 and 5 Review by John Hargreaves If high-level children’s play is imaginative, creative, problem-solving, risk-taking and deeply co-operative, the children in Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons stories sure knew how to do it. Much the same can be said for …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews ‘Ladies Day’ which is at the New Vic in Newcastle-under-Lyme until February 25th They have a very particular accent in Hull. Refined Yorkshire. People make ‘Fern Curls’ to each other. And in this new, updated production of ‘Ladies Day’ the cast get that – and everything else – just right. …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews “Shakers : Under New Management” which is at the New Vic in Newcastle Under Lyme until Saturday 29th October Three actors, three bar stools and that’s it. But it’s what you do with such meagre resources that counts. And for the past 50 years Hull Truck Theatre Company – and its …
Chris Eldon Lee review “Family Album”, which is at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-Under-Lyme until Saturday 22nd October. ‘Family Album’ is Alan Ayckbourn’s 87th play … and one of his very, very best. It is an absolute masterpiece of character observation and theatrical construction. Unsurprisingly, he returns to themes of human frailty and utilises …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews ‘The Card’, which is at Fenton Town Hall until Saturday 9th July. This wonderfully celebratory piece of theatre has a great deal going for it … not least, the brilliant (if obvious) casting of the fabulous Gareth Cassidy as Denry Machin, ‘The Card’ himself. This man is the ultimate comedy character …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews Tom, Dick and Harry which is at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle Under Lyme until Saturday 9th July. My wife is German. She has been living in England for almost 40 years and has never understood why the English are so obsessed with telling and re-telling and telling again the …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews Hotbuckle Theatre Company’s production of ‘Great Expectations’ which is touring widely. It is a measure of the high regard in which Hotbuckle Theatre is held that the good folk of Condover last Saturday night eschewed the penalty shootout of the FA Cup Final and the tumult of the Eurovision Song Contest …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews Jane Eyre, which is at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme until 28th May So, there I was – settling down to review yet another small-cast adaptation of ‘Jane Eyre’. After all, Charlotte Bronte has plenty of fans. She sells tickets. People like straight-forward adaptations. This should be a gentle enough …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews ‘Happy Jack’, which is at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle Under Lyme until Saturday 30th April. It’s not often you get a stage play that is also a ‘page turner’. Watching ‘Happy Jack’ is like thumbing the pages of an old family photo album … keen to see the next …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews “Cluedo” which is at Shrewsbury’s Theatre Severn until Saturday 16th April If you like, I can tell you who did it right now. The Butler did it. And by that, I mean he completely stole the show. Jean-Luke Worrell has been recruited from the highly successful “The Comedy About A Bank …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews Floella Benjamin’s “Coming to England” which is at Birmingham Repertory Theatre until Saturday 16th April. Floella Benjamin should be a national hero in two nations; the UK and Trinidad. The experience of ‘Coming to England’ at the age of ten (at the turn of the 60s) has clearly been etched on …
Coming To England at Birmingham Repertory Theatre Read More »
reviewed by Chris Eldon Lee It’s intriguing how many theatre directors choose The Tempest for their swan song. It was the last play Shakespeare wrote and it ends with his final hero, Prospero, drowning his books of spells and snapping his powerful staff in twain. The magician retires to his previous life. “T’is time”, …
‘The Tempest’ presented by Shropshire Youth Theatre Read More »
Chris Eldon Lee reviews ‘Marvellous’, which is at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-Under-Lyme until Saturday April 9th. As they gathered to discuss the possibility of doing a new play called ‘Marvellous’, I wonder if the New Vic’s creative team ever dreamed it would be quite as blooming marvellous as this. I supplicate myself before …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews Northern Broadsides ‘As You Like It’ which is at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle Under Lyme until Saturday 26th February … and touring throughout the North. The snowdrops are out, there is warmth in the air and Northern Broadsides are back on the road with their traditional spring Shakespeare. At …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews Looking Good Dead which is at Shrewsbury’s Theatre Severn until Saturday 12th February … and touring I’m an EastEnders virgin … so the actors Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett are completely new to me. But, by God, are they good. All those years working together around Albert Square have fine-tuned their …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews ‘The Panto Adventures of Peter Pan’, which is at Shrewsbury’s Theatre Severn until Monday 3rd of January. Absence certainly makes the heart grow fonder. I must confess to a tiny tear as the band struck up the overture at Friday’s press night. After so many miserable months, unbounded silliness is back …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews ‘Beauty and the Beast’ which is at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle Under Lyme until January 29th. There are two startling transformations in this Christmas fairy tale. Towards the end of the play the Beast is prostrate before his mother’s statue, weak from his hunger strike and bereft of human …
Chris Eldon Lee reviews ‘Jacaranda’, a co-production between Pentabus Theatre and Keswick’s Theatre By The Lake, which he saw as it toured to Habberley Village Hall in Shropshire. As the extensive and enthusiastic applause for Pentabus Theatre’s new play finally subsided, the Chairman of Habberley Village Hall carefully opened the farm gate that led onto …
Chris Eldon Lee review Pentabus Theatre Company’s “Idyll” which is at Stokesay Court near Craven Arms until Sunday 22nd August – and then touring. I enjoyed the last collaboration between Pentabus Theatre Company and writer Matt Hartley so much, I saw it twice. Now, under the company’s new director Elle While, I’m delighted to report …
Chris Eldon Lee review ‘KING LEAR’, presented by Here To There Theatre Company at Stokesay Court, Shropshire, until Sat 26th June – as part of the Ludlow Festival Fringe. Theatre directors seem unable to resist ‘doing something’ with King Lear. I’ve seen him played by a woman, and set in a nursing home, or in …